SixPack

MesomorphGames released the PlayingCardsExpansion in early 2004. It adds four new suits to the piecepack based on the suits in a standard deck of playing cards (Hearts, Spades, Diamonds, Clubs).

On the page ComparisonOfEditions, I proposed that designers experiment with combining the PlayingCardsExpansion with the standard piecepack, then removing the Crowns and Arms suits.

				special	special
		black	black	black	red	red	red
even	special	null spades	null clubs	null moons	null suns	null hearts	null diamonds
odd	special	ace spades	ace clubs	ace moons	ace suns	ace hearts	ace diamonds
even		2 spades	2 clubs	2 moons	2 suns	2 hearts	2 diamonds
odd		3 spades	3 clubs	3 moons	3 suns	3 hearts	3 diamonds
even		4 spades	4 clubs	4 moons	4 suns	4 hearts	4 diamonds
odd		5 spades	5 clubs	5 moons	5 suns	5 hearts	5 diamonds

This would leave a six-suited piecepack with some interesting properties:

All the suits are either red or black.
The "dimensions" of suit and color are no longer identical. Thus, "Red Aces are wild" and similar rules have a non-trivial meaning.
There are exactly as many suits as values (six).
Just as there are two special values out of six (null and ace), there are two suits out of six that can be designated as special: Suns and Moons.
Half of the suits are red, and half are black. Half of the values are even and half are odd (assuming null = 0 and ace = 1).
An optional six-sided die could show one suit on each face, to enable players to pick suits randomly in an easy way.

There are probably some symmetries and other interesting properties that I haven't noticed yet, and that will only become apparent after designing and playing some games with this set of components, which I hereby dub the SixPack and encourage others to use in their designs.

Note that an Icepack Piecepack Expanded can be used to emulate a SixPack; you just have to pretend that the playing cards suits have their usual colours. It is even easier with the monochrome JcdPiecepack, since it contains all the right suits, with all the red suits now "light" and all the black suits "dark".

--RonHaleEvans

I think one of the biggest problem with the HexPack is that it doesn't provide enough tiles (just 24).

But the SixPack would:

6x6 = 36 coins

36 + 1 (sun/moon) + 1 (null/ace) = 38

you need 37 tiles to make an hexagonal grid of 4 tiles on each side. This board can be used to play games like: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/5972/item/178031 (including GIPF)

--DanielAjoy

Ron's six fold symetery when using the PlayingCardsExpansion can be make even more so with some simple modifications. The three red pawns and three black pawns are not fully distinguishable, as only one of each set is marked. I suggest that one of the red pawns be marked with a black dot and one of the black pawns be marked with a red dot. The pawn saucers can be marked similarly. I may mark the dice as well, but that may not be necessary.

-- Mark A. Biggar

I have now marked my set in this way. I used some paints I have for painting miniatures (Steve Jackson Games Ogre Miniatures is my poison of choice) and added a red dot on the top of the Black pawn and a black dot on the top of the red pawn. The dots are as close as I could get to being the same size dots as the silver dots on the other pawns. I also marked my pawn saucers. The paint dots on the saucers were so small that trying to place a smaller dot in the center of the already existent dot was too hard, so I just put two dots on either side of the central dot (yeah I know that reverse the association of the saucers, but who cares). I have decided to associate the pawns marked with silver dots with the Major Suits (spades and hearts), as that way, if I write a ruleset using this expansion, users do not have to mark their set like I did. I didn't bother marking the dice.

-- Mark A. Biggar

I like the concept of this kind of piecepack better, because of the added flexibility, as you note. The difference between this and the regular piecepack is rather like the difference between French-suited cards and Swiss/German-suited cards---bells (or shields), acorns, leaves, and hearts (or roses) arn't paired together like spades and clubs, or diamonds and hearts, are. And of course, there's the wands, swords, cups, and pentacles of the tarock deck.

I could see a larger version of the "SixPack", wherein you retain the normal colors and suits of the regular piecepack, but add in more suits with the same colors. For instance, you'd have green consisting of crowns, leaves, and pentacles; red of suns, roses, and wands; blue of arms, cups, and bells; black of moons, swords, and acorns... or what have you. Maybe add a sort of joker suit as well: multi-colored bells. Though increasing the number of suits also merits increasing the number of coins/tiles per suit, to 12 in this case. Maybe 13, with the bells.

Far too cumbersome a set to use all at once, though.

-- Ava Jarvis, call it HoardPack....

Oh but why not use the ones already mentioned:

black: moons, spades, clubs
red: suns, hearts, diamonds
green: arms, cups (?), bells (?)
blue: crowns, leaves (?), pentacles (?)

that is: the design of a new piecepack set, with two green and two blue symbols.

my first use of such a HoardPack would be to play Outfox: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/14189/outfox

Outfox needs two sets of 3x3 = 9 coins. 3 symbols and 3 colors

So I could select:

nulls, aces, 3s for symbols
and black, red, green for colors

and give the players these tiles:

player 1: [spades null] [spades ace] [spades 3] [hearts null] [hearts ace] [hearts 3] [cups null] [cups ace] [cups 3]
player 2: [clubs null] [clubs ace] [clubs 3] [diamonds null] [diamonds ace] [diamonds 3] [bells null] [bells ace] [bells 3]

those would be 18 tiles.

38 - 18 = 20

the board just needs 3+4+5+4+3 = 19 of those 20 tiles :) sweet!

--DanielAjoy

Mark, I plan to make your pawn modifications to my Mesomorph Third Edition set ASAP.

Ava, I find the HoardPack concept intriguing, but it seems unlikely anyone will ever manufacture one, let alone design games for one. 169 tiles, 169 coins, 13 dice and 13 pawns? Sounds like a piecepack version of the Double Fanucci deck to me... :)

--RonHaleEvans

With the JcdPiecepack, if you use Crowns and Anchors instead of Suns and Moons, you still get 3 dark suits, 3 light, but now they also all match the suits in the Empire card deck.

As for the HoardPack, I am currently working on an expansion for the JcdPiecepack which will introduce 4 new suits. Giving 12 suits total.. 6 dark, 6 light. If constructed with colour paper or painted wood with the trasparent stickers, it would be possible to create the HoardPack as you described.

-- JonathanDietrich